Review of Run Rabbit Run – Outstanding Lead Performance, Disappointing Film – Top

Coming off a successful run starring in the hit HBO drama series Succession, Sarah Snook can now be seen starring in a new film—the recently released Run Rabbit Run. But if you decide to watch the new flick, don’t expect something anywhere near the quality of a series like Succession. This psychological horror film essentially takes a bunch of tropes associated with grief and trauma and throws them together in an underwhelming way that brings nothing new or significant to the table.

The film follows single mother Sarah (Snook), who’s notably dealing with the recent death of her father. Through the film’s duration, she’s forced to confront her past, facing a variety of horrific psychological challenges, mainly involving her young daughter, Mia (Lily LaTorre), and her estranged mother, Joan (Greta Scacchi), who is living in a care facility and in the early stages of dementia, as well as her sister, who has been missing since her childhood.

With an actor of Snook’s caliber in the lead role, it’s hard not to at least be somewhat interested in the film. As usual, she commands the screen throughout the film’s entirety, bringing to life a character slowly losing their grip on reality and starting to spiral out, delivering a layered performance of a complex woman experiencing the vast effects of her own unconfronted trauma. LaTorre, who plays her daughter, Mia, surprisingly delivers a pretty great performance as well, which helps make the movie a more worthwhile watch, especially since the two actresses dominate most of the screen time.

However, the rest of the film falls flat. It ultimately doesn’t, at least, find anything truly interesting to say about trauma and grief, instead just continuously plunging into typical and familiar tropes. And the other production elements lack any outstanding aspects as well. For example, the cinematography offers essentially zero oomph, besides some decent landscape shots. The score is meager as well, barely detectable or at least noteworthy when utilized. Everything besides the performances from the main two actresses just feels pretty cliché and basic.

I will say though, you can’t really claim the filmmakers didn’t at least somewhat try and put some of their own real effort into the film. I was slightly shaken at some points of the film, as certain moments were a bit chilling. And although the film has a sluggish pace, I was still somewhat interested to see what would happen. The script isn’t all that special, but at least it isn’t flat-out boring or plain awful. But still, as a whole, it’s quite a let down, likely only to truly impress and scare those with little to no experience with the thriller and horror genres.

Run Rabbit Run has a great lead performance from Snook, as well as a good boost from LaTorre in the main supporting role, but amidst a rather lackluster production, that’s about everything worthwhile that the film has to offer. Otherwise, it really just comes off as a lazy and stretched-out low-budget short film.

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